


Research excerpts

by DarkPhoenixLady



Series: The Deep Dream [4]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Spoilers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-02
Updated: 2020-11-18
Packaged: 2021-03-09 09:40:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 3,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27349066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkPhoenixLady/pseuds/DarkPhoenixLady
Summary: A collection of Excerpts from research about The Dream and how it affects the magical world
Series: The Deep Dream [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1995562
Kudos: 3





	1. On the decline of magic amongst purebloods

As you can see from the scans of 300 mothers and their newborn babies over the last 80 years, it seems like the mother infuses slightly less pure magic on her child than she herself carries. The more magic she does during pregnancy the closer it comes to her own purity, but it is still less. Going through the records, it seems that the trend started to become noticeable after the witch burnings forced the Magical world to isolate itself, and made non-wanded traditions of magic impractical to learn from scratch. Thus, everyone learnt how to use a wand first, and only if they were interested did they learn one of the other traditions. The decline of people delving into The Dream also parallels this, as being able to feel and influence your own magic is a pre-requisite for both disciplines. It is also something that has to be learnt before attempting to delve, as without that control all users will find themselves falling through the middle, never to return. Even the usage of a dreamless sleep potion doesn’t help as all it does is strand the user where they are until they wake up, or they can bring their magic back under control.

What this means, is that less and less magicals were exposed to the much purer magic in the middle and outer layers which reinforced the magic they were born with, thus counteracting the reduced amount that was transferred in the womb.

In order to prove this, I have taken careful measurements of my own magical purity and I believe that I have learnt to control my magic enough to safely delve. I will take new measurements in the morning and that will provide enough proof that I can get this funded as a Department Research Project.

_This file is being closed as Researcher 7482 hasn’t returned for two weeks. Any researcher looking to continue this as a private project needs to get permission from the head unspeakable._


	2. A Treaty on the old gods

Currently received wisdom says that the Gods of old were just very powerful wizards. In the following document I will show through researched evidence that this is false. Instead, magic was far more widespread than we can envision today and beings from the Inner Dream were able to survive here for short periods of time. Indeed, it’s not that the wizards of old weren’t powerful, as indubitably they were as they used practices that are now lost to time. Rather, the creatures that we called gods weren’t actually beings of flesh and never had been. There are also clues in the tales of the fey, and how they used to run rampant during the night, only leaving homes that were protected by iron undisturbed. Though woe betide one who leaves that protection while they were abroad.

The report will also work with muggle geology and archeology to show that the space that the dream occupies changes over time, shrinking and expanding, often explosively. Indeed, it was an unprecedented contraction of the dream that lead to the death of the dinosaurs, as magical evidence shows that the Meteorite that wiped them out wasn’t the first of such size during their existence, it was just the first that happened after that contraction.


	3. On Horcruxes and Ancient Egyptian practices

Horcruxes have existed in some form for hundreds of years. The most famous example being that of the technique developed by Herpo the foul, where he was able to take part of his soul and bind it to a container. What is less well known are the Ancient Egyptian practices of separating the Ba and Ka and tying the Ba to Khet. Muggles mistakenly believe that opening the mouth to allow the Ba to join the Ka upon death was purely a death ritual. Rather, this was a rite to celebrate life and allow the passing of an honored protector. 

In one of the rare documents I had access to in the restricted parts of the Library, they discuss the process of binding a portion of a Pharaohs soul to the earth so that when they travel through the dream in defence of Egypt they could devote their entire attention on the defence without needing to fear becoming unanchored from our world. Then when the dream ended they would be drawn back to earth instead of being trapped and needing to survive to the next dreaming. This ritual did no damage to the soul, as there is no way that a wounded soul could survive in the deeper layers of the dream. Indeed, evidence would suggest that the corrupted ritual that is used to create a Horcrux will do the opposite of the original Egyptian ritual, and cause the wizard to be unable to delve the dream. It is therefore ironic that those that seek immortality and power are in fact denying themselves the ability to access both, as there are legends of magicals that have survived the very boundary between the middle and inner regions of The Dream, and these people were no longer confined to their earthly bodies. Though in all cases, destroying their earthly form did banish them from the outer regions of The Dream.

I theorize that the original reason for these rituals was to allow a Pharaoh to bypass the intense training and the hazardous first delves and instead concentrate on learning to use their power in The Dream and without.


	4. An Analogy delving The Dream By Dr Daniel Granger

If you’re familiar with SCUBA _editor: I am reliably informed that SCUBA is like a bubble-headed charm with a duration limited by depth rather than just time_ diving, then imagine the dream is like the ocean and magic is breathing equipment. At the surface you have people with masks and snorkels and people without. The deeper the sea floor the more people need to have masks and snorkels in order to get things. Once the water becomes deep enough, people need to have SCUBA in order to spend any time there. Still lower and you need a specialised air mix. Any deeper and you pass the point where it’s possible for human life to survive.

For everyone else, grab a couple of tennis balls _editor:tennis is a muggle sport where they hit a hollow rubber ball on a pitch and try to make their opponent miss the ball while ensuring that the ball lands in the marked area at least once._ and in one of them make two holes, and in the other make one hole. Now put a plastic _editor: I’m not sure what plastic is, but it seems to be a cross between rubber and glass_ cap in each hole. The one with two caps are magicals, while the one with only one cap represents non-magicals and squibs.

Throw the tennis balls into a pool with or without caps, and you’ll see that they both float. However, add a bit of water to represent magic and the one with two holes will start to sink once the ball is just under half full. If, on the other hand you fill it up a bit and put the caps in it will sink a certain amount and then stop sinking. This is what I think happens when a magical is asleep during the dream, the same with squibs and non-magicals. However if you don’t put enough water in the ball for it to sink below the surface, then even with the hole open, the ball with a single hole will not go below the surface. What happens with squibs that stay awake though is that they get pulled below the surface, and magic starts filling them up until they start to sink of their own accord. No matter how long you hold a ball with a plug in it below the surface it still won’t fill with water though. However if you had a deep enough pool, eventually the cap would pop out _editor: when I queried why the cap would pop out, Dan sent me a book on a muggle science called physics and said that I needed to read that before he could explain it_ and the ball would fill with water.

For the dangers of willingly going into the dream, add a cross bar near the middle of the pool, and any ball that goes below that crossbar is a dead magical. Now fill up one of the balls with water enough that it will be completely below the surface, but not below the bar. This is what you’re trying to do when you delve. Once you’ve got an idea of where you can fill the ball to get to a certain depth, you can fill it less safely, but it’s still risky to fill it more.


	5. The ethics of fiendfyre by Master Healer Patrycja Gosling

With the discovery that there are lifeforms made out of pure magic we now need to take into account the possibility that we are not just summoning forth a magical fire that can consume almost anything as long as there is magic to sustain it. We could in fact be summoning a fiery being of pure magic that requires magic to live much like we require air to live. If this is the case then we need to revisit cases where the dark nature of the spell was out weighed by the need to destroy a cursed artefact that either was too costly to destroy another way or was impossible to destroy by non-dark means. It also brings into question the reason why the spell has a cost on the soul in the first place and the possibility that it either could be modified or a new spell created that wouldn’t cause the torture and death of a living creature.

Later in the paper I will also be exploring old fairy tales from the magical Persia and the surrounding environs where wizards were said to have summoned fire elementals to do their bidding, and even banished them. Given the parallels with muggles fairy tales from the region it’s possible that there is more than a little truth there.

_Editors note: this paper was the final step healer gosling needed to finish her mastery and is included in this publication along with the notes from the masters that reviewed her paper. The article on the rediscovery of Aictuilaxr by Rubeus Hagrid see the Beltane edition of An Exploration of magizoology_


	6. An interview with Arthur Weasley about his plug collection.

OL:I know that people tend to laugh whenever you mention that you have a plug collection, what my readers want to know is what drove you to start collecting plugs.

AW: As you know I have worked in the misuse of muggle artefacts department for years. When I first started I used to get sent out to all sorts of locations, and they all had the same sort of plugs. Muggleborns will be very familiar with the three pin plug, with rectangular pins. They faded into the background and you kinda ignore them after a while. But I was sent to an older house and instead of rectangular pins they had round pins, and it was fascinating. The owner wasn’t able to tell me why they were like that, just that they had always been like that in this house and it was a pain. That’s when I went out into the muggle world and bought a normal one and one of those and that was the start of my collection.

OL: What’s the strangest plug that you own

AW: This beast is an original brass and copper plug for a DC transatlantic telephone cable, only 20 DC cables ever worked, and none of them lasted longer than 6 months before melting somewhere in the ocean. This plug came from a store room in the factory where they made the cables, they were demolishing it in 76 in order to put in a block of flats and it came up in auction. I was very lucky to find it.

OL: What’s the oldest plug you own

AW: I was very lucky to find an original T. T. Smith plug from 1883 in an estate sale for an old home in north west England that was raising money to get their roof repaired.

OL: You seem to be very knowledgeable about the history and usage of all your plugs, would you be able to walk us through your collection.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know that there were successful DC telephone cables - as in you could make a call. I'm not sure how many were actually laid before they switched to AC current, so I plucked a number that sounds reasonable out of thin air.
> 
> For those that are interested, this is the wiki article for UK plugs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AC_power_plugs_and_sockets:_British_and_related_types#:~:text=According%20to%20British%20author%20John,Electric%20Company%20catalogue%20of%201889.  
> I have no real long term interest in the subject, I just know that there is always history associated with any collection, and wanted to show Arthur as a competent person that wasn't just stealing 3 pin plugs and hoarding them.


	7. Discussion on the Cheering charm, from a class with Filius Flitwick.

“Ok, most of you have now got the hang of the charm, as you’ve found adding the hook with your wand in the middle of a spell is much harder than you’d expect. Next week we’ll go over a spell that uses two in a row. Now does anyone have a question about todays lesson?”

“Would a cheering charm work against a boggart?”

“That’s a good question, but it will take the time left to deal with it, does anyone have any objections to covering this?”

“First of all, I’d like you to state why you think it would work.”

“A boggart feeds on fear and the cheering charm makes you happy, which is what we get with the Riddikulus spell.”

“Ah, a well thought out response, 5 points to Slytherin. However, you’re missing some key information. Magic that affects emotions, whether it’s a calming draft, love potion, cheering charm, or any other spell; it can only ever create artificial emotions. Because of this they fall into the same category as the Confundus charm and the Imperius Curse. What the boggart feeds off is the fear tainted magic that a witch or wizard gives off. You can ask madam Pomfrey for an explanation on how magic is affected by our emotions later if you want an indepth discussion.

“The way it does this is to match its visible form to the one that exhibits the most fear. It also outputs a minor fear aura to kickstart the process. As the witch succumbs to the boggart the image will become clearer and clearer in a feedback loop. If you were under the effects of the cheering charm you might not notice this until your fear overwhelms the charm. For pushing a boggart back once it has a victim, the charm would be completely ineffective as the natural fear they produce would be so strong that no witch or wizard could hope to overcome it.

“That’s not to say it might not have uses in the situation, can anyone hazard a guess those uses?”

“To rescue someone?”

“Good, 1 point to Gryffindor.”

“To give yourself time to cast the charm?”

“Good 1 point to Slytherin.”

“To give yourself time to escape?”

“Well done, and this is the best use of it, 2 points to Slytherin. Well we’re out of time, I’ll see you in your next lesson”


	8. An analysis of the effects of magic on electronics – stolen from the offices of MI5, and written by a muggleborn

To understand why electronic equipment fails in regions of very high magic, such as Hogwarts and Gringotts bank, we first need to understand what allows them to work in the first place. Since the invention of the transistor electronics have been making increasing use of a phenomenon known as semiconductivity. This means that under the right conditions a material can either conduct electricity or not. Prior to this, electronics used vacuum tubes, and these were unaffected by magic, as evidenced by the popularity of the wizarding wireless. In a very high magical area materials are constantly changing very slightly, it averages out in the end, but for things like electronics it’s like quantum effects are taking place on the microscopic level rather than just the atomic level.

For many applications of electricity this isn’t a problem as magnets still work, copper still conducts electricity, large capacitors still hold a charge, and chemical reactions still happen. It also doesn’t affect living things as all living things contain a little magic and it works to protect our DNA [see report 290488/ATS/M5/MB]. However, this does cause transistors to fire early or late, and thus introduce random uncorrectable errors. Those that use transistors for voltage regulation tend to experience a fatal surge after a variable period of time.


	9. On the decline and inevitable failure of the Statue of Secrecy

## On the decline and inevitable failure of the Statue of Secrecy

This research article aims to describe how the Statue has already failed in specific ways, and how those failures are both prolonging its inevitable full failure and hastening its decline in specific ways. Before we touch on the necessary background of how the muggle world has advanced and what our projections for their capabilities will be in the future, it is necessary to understand just how long they have been able to keep their knowledge of our world secret from us. The following memo dates from the middle of the last war and was found in a file being worked on during a routine check for missed oblivations.

* * *

Security: Eyes only

Date: 27th June 1976

======================================================

This memo must be destroyed once it’s contents have been read, the master copy will be kept on file.

We have recently received a delayed Fax from the offices of [Redacted]. This fax detailed how terrorists that they’d captured wearing dark cloaks with white masks would disappear if subjected to standard sleep deprivation based interrogation techniques. After careful questioning and investigation it has become clear that none of the staff remember ever having these prisoners let alone doing any interrogation of them. Additionally the original documents have also not been found.

If you capture any of these terrorists in the future, you are to transport them to a location that will be faxed to you upon confirmation that you have one. For reasons of national security we will be referring to these terrorists as a splinter group of the IRA, and attributing any of their atrocities to such a group in public. When calling in a prisoner use the code name of IRA – True Dream.

* * *

As you can see from this memo, the uncontrolled knowledge of our world escaped due to the reckless actions of the Death Eater faction during the last war. Further investigation has shown that the reason for this was the introduction of Fax machines that could buffer a few pages of a fax before it was sent.

Research has shown that standard procedure during this period was to obliviate everyone at the target site after using veritasium to locate anyone else that may know, as well as destroy any physical records. We were not aware of the new development of this type of Fax machine, even though they had been around for a few years.

This article will now go on to outline the current state of technology in the muggle world, and how widely spread we believe the uncontrolled knowledge of our world has spread.


End file.
